Mint 17 End of life

[1.618]

Is there a date for when updates will cease? 17 has been super stable on my box so I'm torn between keeping it and risking the security of my machine or nuking it and having the latest updates.

[karlchen]

Answer: Linux Mint Releases => Column "Status"
And of course the columns status only gives the last month of Mint 17's supported life. No-one will be able to give a precise day.
It all depends on when exactly the Ubuntu developers will publish the final software updates for Ubuntu 14.04.

[Schultz]

1.618 wrote:
17 has been super stable on my box so I'm torn between keeping it and risking the security of my machine or nuking it and having the latest updates.

I've used both Mint 17 and 18. They both ran just fine on my system. The only thing I didn't like was that the DE I use (Mate) made some changes that were for the worse in my opinion. But Mint 17 & 18 are basically the same as far as how stable they ran (at least on my computer).

[Hoser Rob]

... Mint 17 & 18 are basically the same as far as how stable they ran (at least on my computer).

That's been my experience, mostly. IMO new Linux releases are largely needed for hardware compatibility.

I'm going to have to replace the MInt 17.3 on my netbook soon. While I've always intended to run an LTS release until EOL this is the first time I've actually gotten this close before installing a newer one. This time I'm almost certain it's going to be the unofficial Mint 18.3 LXDE spin (I've always liked LXDE< and it's FAST):

https://www.linuxmintusers.de/index.php ... ic=45551.0

[BG405]

April, as I thought, confirmed by Karlchen's link. It's a shame as Mint 17.3 has to be the best OS for its time, but be aware that a lot of software updates stopped a couple of years ago. For example, stuff like youtube-dl, the old version being pretty much useless. What we get with the last 2 years of support appears to be mostly security updates (which in the case of youtube-dl etc. is a bit surprising, being a Web-facing program).

Even Mint 18 is approaching its "extended support" phase; really, I'd suggest going for Mint 19 now.

[gm10]

April, as I thought, confirmed by Karlchen's link. It's a shame as Mint 17.3 has to be the best OS for its time, but be aware that a lot of software updates stopped a couple of years ago. For example, stuff like youtube-dl, the old version being pretty much useless. What we get with the last 2 years of support appears to be mostly security updates (which in the case of youtube-dl etc. is a bit surprising, being a Web-facing program).

youtube-dl is not supported software. The 5 years of support only apply to a subset of the available software packages, in the case of LM17 about 8.5k packages are supported, whereas the remaining about 37k packages are only "community maintained", which means you may never get any updates, but even if you do you are extremely unlikely to get them past the date of the next LTS release (2 years).

In the case of LM19 the discrepancy is even bigger, we've got only 6.3k supported packages vs 54k community maintained packages.

Hence my advice to always upgrade to the next LTS release as it becomes available if at all possible for you.

[151tom]

.

[Pjotr]

youtube-dl

This should get you the latest youtube-dl (with thanks to gm10):

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install python3-pip youtube-dl

Code: Select all

sudo -H pip3 install --upgrade youtube-dl

[Flemur]

Code: Select all

sudo -H pip3 install --upgrade youtube-dl

Or

Code: Select all

sudo youtube-dl -U

[BG405]

youtube-dl is not supported software.

I'd considered that but would have thought the developer of this one would push updates for all still-supported platforms, really don't know how this works though in general, with respect to the repos & what gets included or updated.

The 5 years of support only apply to a subset of the available software packages, in the case of LM17 about 8.5k packages are supported, whereas the remaining about 37k packages are only "community maintained", which means you may never get any updates, but even if you do you are extremely unlikely to get them past the date of the next LTS release (2 years).

This I'd also assumed to be true, and thinking about it, in this timescale I wouldn't expect much, if any, "3rd-party" (if that is close to the right term) software being updated .. still, we get browser updates, kernel updates and other essential stuff to keep us going. I was just a bit surprised that some software which does need to be kept current (at least to remain useable) is forgotten about.

Just install Linux Mint 19.1 it works great OOTB on everything I've installed it on.

Very tempted

@Pjotr & Flemur:
Thanks for those replies; will be good for my Mint 18.x systems.

[gm10]

youtube-dl is not supported software.

I'd considered that but would have thought the developer of this one would push updates for all still-supported platforms, really don't know how this works though in general, with respect to the repos & what gets included or updated.

The developers have little to do with that package, they're not the ones maintaining it for Ubuntu. In addition, it's not that easy getting feature updates into a stable release due to the way Ubuntu's release cycle works. If you're interested, here's the procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates. You can initiate it yourself.

The people that do generally move on to the next Ubuntu release as it becomes available.

[1.618]

Thanks for the replies, I'm going to try 18 and 19 on a seperate drive first, my main concern is I have AMD graphics which could be problematic (emphasis on 'could' and not 'will be'), if they are ok I'm then going to format the drive with 17 on to use as a seperate data partition

[dXTC]

Ah, Qiana and the rest, we loved you so... Mint 17 was my first serious foray into the world of Linux. Although most of my Mint machines have since been upgraded to 18 or 19, I had maintained 17.3 on my Optiplex 760 for its stability as a Dropbox client and local network server, as well as my primary Web surfing client. That has just changed; I'm writing this post on the Optiplex under Mint 19.1 Cinnamon.

I chose a clean install of 19 this time, rather than attempting an in-place upgrade like I did on my older Latitude. Out-of-the-box, the Mint 19 install experience ran as smoothly as 17-- even smoother, in fact, as 19 properly recognized and set up my WiFi hardware with no intervention. (Granted, I was using a Broadcom-based WiFi USB stick back in the day, but not having to hook into Ethernet and go to the Terminal to get WiFi running was nice this time around.) Now that I've done it, I realize I should've moved to 19 earlier. The Dropbox app available on 19 is way more informative than the version on 17.x. The occasional WiFi connectivity dropout issue I was experiencing on 17.3 lately has resolved itself.

[BG405]

If you're interested, here's the procedure: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates. ...

Definitely, thanks for the link! Server flaked out again after a recent repair having previously been flawless & been a bit distracted sorting issues getting the replacement OS set up as no longer worth repairing the old 17.3 on htat; HDD has been failing SMART tests for well over a year so this was inevitable .. so, sorry for resultant belated response.

Mint 17 was my first serious foray into the world of Linux.

17.3 in my case it's certainly provided a fantastic way to jump straight into Linux with no (or hardly any) issues .. usually far less than Windows anyway. I'll certainly miss it & will keep working VMs for nostalgia purposes & as a stop-gap until I get my printer working with current 64-bit OS versions.